John’s found bliss with his latest chapter in life
JOHN GORDON SINCLAIR has told how switching from acting to writing has made him “a happier soul”.
The former Gregory’s Girl star is now a best-selling author.
His third book, a dark kidnap thriller partly set in Glasgow called Walk In Silence, is just out and he’s appearing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on Saturday.
And dad-of-two John, 55, says it was wanting to spend time with daughters Eva, 11, and Anna, nine, that made him take up writing.
“I wanted to do something at home and didn’t want to be one of those people whose kids say, ‘Oh, my dad was never there,’” John told The Sunday Post.
“But I’ve realised now that I got the timing of that wrong. When they’re very young you could be anyone, it’s only now that it really matters that you’re around.
“It’s definitely more important to be here as it affects them if you’re not around. They’re at a really impressionable age.”
Wife Shauna is a GP and John’s the one on the school run most days, one of the few men at the gates of the Guildford school.
But he says family is what it’s all about these days.
“I love hanging out with my girls and my wife. There’s a group that goes up to the pub every other Friday night and a lot of the guys are so relieved to get a break away from the family.
“But I’m the opposite. I always wish they were there with me.”
Walk In Silence, like his previous two books, was penned in a shed at the end of his garden.
But it’s far from the basic hut for a lawnmower.
“It’s got all the essentials, like a beer fridge, a coffee machine and a sofa to do my thinking on,” laughed John. “I spend a lot of time there. It’s like my prison cell in a way and I feel I’m growing too attached to it. I’ve even got a sign on the door from a jail that was closing down saying, ‘Inmates must be accompanied by an officer in this zone’.”
John’s books have been critically acclaimed as well as being bigsellers and he says more people talk to him about his writing than acting these days.
“It’s taken to the third book to feel more confident in this now.
“I’m a much happier soul as a writer than I ever was as an actor. I enjoy acting when I do it but I really love writing and I’ve already written the chapter for a fourth book.
“Crime is what I like doing – I started this whole thing because I’d never read a crime novel that made me cry – but I’ve also started a children’s book because the girls are too young to read what I do.”
Apart from Edinburgh this week, John is appearing at the Bloody Scotland crime writing festival in early September. But he hasn’t given up on acting. He’s one of the stars of new sitcom Ill Behaviour, which starts on BBC2 next week, and is also in Diana And I, a major BBC1 drama later this month marking the 20th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death.
And although it’s more than 35 years since Gregory’s Girl shot him to fame, he’s still big pals with co-star Clare Grogan.
“She’s doing a tour with Midge Ure and we’re going along to the gig in October,” added John.
“She’s staying with us that night and the girls are looking forward to seeing their auntie Clare on stage.”
Walk In Silence by J. G. Sinclair (Faber and Faber) is out now.